A New Riverside London Hotel Might Be Coming to St. Paul's

Believe it or not, but this sad-looking vacant block of red brick has uninterrupted, million-dollar views of London’sTate Modern museum, with that little bit of murky water actually being the river Thames. Why are we showing you this? Because a few years from now this might turn into a glassy new mixed-use complex, centered around a new 224-room hotel a few blocks away from St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Referred to at the moment as the Queensbridge House Hotel & Apartments, the 7-story building would replace three existing office blocks, which sit tightly between the Thames and the busy street right behind, as well as above it – more pictures to get a sense of how that works below.

This is a rendering of the end result (you can see the red brick building on the left appears in both shots), which would be a big step forward in the looks department. With the redevelopment of the site, the northern riverbank walk between Tower of London in the east and Millenium Bridge a little further west would be completed.

While obviously an opening date is way off, the architect’s website shows status as “planning secured”, which at least gives us hope some movement might be possible in the near future. The building certainly looked empty, so perhaps demolition isn’t far away?

The tear down certainly would be an easy job, with the T-shaped building extending over four-lane Upper Thames Street (above).

Renderings even extend to the guestrooms, the design of which will have a “focus on and celebrate methods of craftsmanship and tailoring drawn from the City Livery companies which have been active in this part of London since medieval times.” We like the back wall architectural drawing, which could reference the dome of nearby St. Paul’s.

The ground floor will have a riverside bar and restaurant, which opens up to the then-continuous Thames walkway, much like Mondrian at Sea Containers will have. A rendering of the bar – with the view across the river – can be found here, which also has another guestroom shot with much bolder and more colorful design. We’ll wait and see how this project develops; whether it will come to life, whether it will be independent or part of a chain, and when we can expect to check in. 2017 perhaps?